


Always Crashing in the Same Car

by Penknife



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Gen, Ghosts, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-09-06 05:27:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20286148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Penknife/pseuds/Penknife
Summary: Ben's trying to get it right.





	Always Crashing in the Same Car

**Author's Note:**

  * For [syrupwit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/syrupwit/gifts).

There's too much happening in the warehouse, too many gunshots and too much blood, and Ben is backed into a corner by big serious men with guns.

No one is coming to help him, he realizes, not panic but something colder. Diego and Luther split up as they entered the warehouse, and they're both fighting separate skirmishes he can hear but not see. Klaus made it to the center of the warehouse floor, where the cement is stained with blood, and is now curled up on the floor with his hands covering his eyes, which isn't helpful. Ben can see Alison, but he doesn't think the men pointing guns at him can hear her over the gunshots and the screams.

One of them rushes him, and he knows it's too soon to bring _them_ through again -- they don't want to listen to him, they're angry, and hungry -- but he has to, so he calls them, and they come.

They feast on the gunmen, and then they turn, still angry, and tear him apart. The last thing he hears is his own voice screaming.

*****

They close in on the warehouse, still arguing. "Stick to the plan, or go home," Luther says.

"You don't get to call the shots," Diego says. "We're all just doing what Dad told us."

"We did this already," Ben says. "Didn't we do this already?"

"Feels like it," Diego mutters. "Let's get this done."

They storm in. Diego and Luther split up as soon as they enter the warehouse. Ben makes his way forward more cautiously with Alison and Klaus. He's still fighting that feeling that this is all a repeat, a rerun of a bad dream.

The fight starts bad and gets worse. Very soon, there's too much happening in the warehouse, too many gunshots and too much blood, and Ben is backed into a corner by big serious men with guns.

No one is coming to help him, he realizes, not panic but something colder. One of the men rushes him, and he knows it's too soon to bring _them_ through again -- they don't want to listen to him, they're angry, and hungry -- so he uses his fists instead just like they were trained to do.

He gets in one punch, and then the man shoots him in the chest, and he goes down in a pool of his own blood. The last thing he hears is Alison screaming.

*****

They close in on the warehouse, still arguing. "Stick to the plan, or go home," Luther says.

"You don't get to call the shots," Diego says. "We're all just doing what Dad told us."

It's got to be some kind of time loop, Ben thinks. That or a nightmare, but this makes too much sense to be a nightmare. The warehouse is a real place, not the mazes he sees in dreams with their twisted geometry that he's afraid makes sense in _that other place_.

"Don't split up," he says. "You and Luther stick together. I have a feeling."

"Is this some kind of weird message from the other side?" Alison asks skeptically.

Klaus shrugs. "Yes. Maybe. Probably." He shoots Ben a conspiratorial glance. Klaus trusts Ben, even when everyone else isn't really playing well together.

"Fine," Luther says. "I'm with you. Ben, you go left, Alison and Klaus go right."

Ben skirts the edge of the warehouse. At least this is different. Luther and Diego storm out into the center of the warehouse and are embroiled in a massive fight. Ben creeps forward between the shelves. Maybe he can get a drop on the men Luther and Diego are fighting.

"I'm right behind you," Klaus says from right behind him.

"You were supposed to go with Alison," Ben says. Klaus shrugs like that doesn't matter. Ben thinks it does, but he's not sure why it does until he realizes that they've both just stepped out onto bloodstained concrete.

"No, no, no," Klaus says, and raises his hands to ward off something Ben can't see. "I'm sorry that happened to you, but I definitely do not want you to show me--"

He backs into a shelf. Boxes tumble and slide. Ben manages to look up in time to see the crate that crushes him and breaks his neck. The last thing he hears is Klaus screaming.

*****

They close in on the warehouse, still arguing. "Stick to the plan, or go home," Luther says.

"You don't get to call the shots," Diego says. "We're all just doing what Dad told us."

"You know, this sucks," Ben says. Both of them turn to look at him. "I keep getting killed over and over again, and none of you are any help whatsoever."

"Are you feeling all right?" Alison asks, frowning at him. He might appreciate the sympathy if he weren't, apparently, trapped in a time loop of repeated painful death.

"Whatever," he says. "Let's just get this done."

He strides straight out into the middle of the warehouse this time and calls _them _through. "You know what, eat everybody," he tells them. "Do whatever you want."

By the time they rip him apart, there is a lot of screaming.

*****

They close in on the warehouse, still arguing. "Stick to the plan, or go home," Luther says.

"You don't get to call the shots," Diego says. "We're all just doing what Dad told us."

Ben lets them go in first and catches Alison by the arm. "Tell me not to die," he says.

She frowns at him. "Are you feeling all right?"

"Just do it. Tell me you heard a rumor I didn't die."

"I heard a rumor you didn't die," she says, and he feels her power taking hold.

He tries. He really, really tries. He's still trying to breathe when everything goes quiet.

*****

They close in on the warehouse, still arguing. "Stick to the plan, or go home," Luther says.

"You don't get to call the shots," Diego says. "We're all just doing what Dad told us."

Klaus steps out in front of Ben. "Don't do this again, all right?" he says. "I'm tired of watching this, I want to go home."

"What?" Ben says, and then, "Are you stuck in the time loop too?"

"This isn't a time loop," Klaus says. Diego and Luther are going into the warehouse. Alison is following them, and Klaus … it's hard to be certain suddenly whether Klaus is following Alison or standing outside the warehouse with his hands in his pockets, looking tired.

"It has to be," Ben says. "I keep dying."

"And so you're back here trying to get it right," Klaus says. "I think? But you can't, because, look, you didn't screw up. Maybe I did, maybe all of us did, maybe Dad screwed up sending us here, maybe, I don't know, maybe everything is just screwed up and always has been."

"Am I dead?"

"Now he gets it," Klaus says. "Yes, that's right, you are dead, and you were haunting me, and I was freaking out, so I took some stuff to make that stop for a while, and when I sobered up you were gone. And then I started freaking out about that, so I came here because it made a weird kind of sense this might be a place you would go."

All of that checks out. A lot of Klaus's decisions are either panicked flight from things or impulsive grasping at things. If he ever learns to calm down, maybe things will turn out better for him than they have for Ben.

"What happens now?" Ben says.

"Nothing I do ever seems to affect that," Klaus says. "I mean, I can tell you to walk toward the light, and all that shit, but you either will or you won't." He hunches his shoulders like he's cold.

"I don't see a light," Ben says.

"Can you at least stop replaying your own death scene? It's morbid," Klaus says.

"You're going to talk about morbid?"

"I want to take it back, too," Klaus says. "I want that day not to have happened, but since it did, and you're dead, I'd like to stop thinking about it now."

"You could be getting high if you want to stop thinking," Ben says.

"It's like I was worried about you," Klaus mutters.

And that checks out, too, that even if he's dead, Klaus doesn't want him to be dead and unhappy.

"I guess I'm going to haunt you some more, then," Ben says, and follows Klaus; it's not walking toward the light, but it is walking toward home.


End file.
